The Hill News

If Rick Perry, governor of Texas, gets up here anytime soon â€" and I have a feeling he will â€" he might take a look at Henry James’s classic, The Bostonians. He might find us today much as James found us in 1886 â€" feminists, utopians, New England Hindus, mesmerists and socialists â€" and feel some kinship to the more stalwart Confederate cousin, Basil Ransom of Mississippi, who eat his peas with a Bowie knife. But Perry, Eagle Scout, Texas rancher, C-130 Air Force pilot and governor longer than any in Texas history, is no Confederate. In fact, in his guide to states’ rights, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, he writes that it was the South’s unwillingness to give up a way of life inexcusably based on the abominable practice of slavery that persuaded Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which compelled citizens of Northern states to act against their conscience and help return escaped former slaves into bondage.

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